Slow Travel Berlin

Pharmakon

SLOW TRAVEL BERLINPharmakon, Kantine am Berghain, 9pm

When Pharmakon first showed up in 2008 with a self-titled EP, it’s probably fair to say that a few people were taken by surprise. That’s because the appearance of the woman making the music, Margaret Chardiet, hardly seemed to match up with the sounds she produced: layers of noise, drone, power electronics, and screams.

But Chardiet, a native New Yorker, isn’t concerned with any of that. This is, after all, the same person who likened her music to an exorcism and described her motivation as wanting to make listeners feel uncomfortable. But more than that, Chardiet–who considers her music to be an incredibly personal extension of herself–hopes that in the process of being vulnerable, she forces listeners to allow their own misconceptions and walls to break apart and fall away.

Last year, Chardiet came out with the five-track full-length “Abandon,” which is as haunting and raw as you might expect. As such, it’s somehow fitting that she’s playing at Berghain’s adjacent venue, the Kantine. Natalye Childress